A typical prior art a disk drive system 10 is illustrated in FIG. 1. In operation the magnetic transducer 20 is supported by the suspension 13 as it flies above the disk 16. The magnetic transducer 20, usually called a “head” or “slider,” is composed of elements that perform the task of writing magnetic transitions (the write head 23) and reading the magnetic transitions (the read head 12). The electrical signals to and from the read and write heads 12, 23 travel along conductive paths (leads) 14 which are attached to or embedded in the suspension 13. The magnetic transducer 20 is positioned over points at varying radial distances from the center of the disk 16 to read and write circular tracks (not shown). The disk 16 is attached to a spindle 18 that is driven by a spindle motor 24 to rotate the disk 16. The disk 16 comprises a substrate 26 on which a plurality of thin films 21 are deposited. The thin films 21 include ferromagnetic material in which the write head 23 records the magnetic transitions in which information is encoded.
The conventional disk 16 consists of substrate 26 of AlMg with an electroless coating of NiP which has been highly polished. Glass is also commonly used for the substrate 26. The thin films 21 on the disk 16 typically include a chromium or chromium alloy underlayer which is deposited on the substrate 26. The ferromagnetic layer in the thin films is based on various alloys of cobalt, nickel and iron. For example, a commonly used alloy is CoPtCr. Additional elements such as tantalum and boron are often used in the magnetic alloy. A protective overcoat layer is used to improve wearability and corrosion. The three film disk described above does not exhaust the possibilities. Various seed layers, multiple underlayers and laminated magnetic films have all been described in the prior art. In a disk drive using perpendicular recording the recording head is designed to direct magnetic flux through the recording layer in a direction which is perpendicular to the plane of the disk. Typically the disk for perpendicular recording has a hard magnetic recording layer and a magnetically soft underlayer. During recording operations using a single-pole type head, magnetic flux is directed from the main pole of the recording head perpendicularly through the hard magnetic recording layer, then into the plane of the soft underlayer and back to the return pole in the recording head.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,531,202 to Litvinov, et al. is an example of a magnetic recording medium for perpendicular or vertical recording. The medium includes a a magnetically soft underlayer deposited on the substrate. Suitable soft magnetic materials for the underlayer are said to include CoFe and alloys thereof, FeAlN, NiFe, CoZrNb and FeTaN, with CoFe and FeAlN being preferred soft materials. A magnetically hard recording layer is deposited on the soft underlayer. Suitable hard magnetic materials for the recording layer are said to include multilayers of Co/Pd or Co/Pt, L10 phases of CoPt, FePt, CoPd and FePd and hcp Co alloys, with such multilayers and L10 phases being preferred hard materials.
In contrast to perpendicular recording, longitudinal recording media typically uses a non-magnetic underlayer under the ferromagnetic recording layer. Typical underlayer materials are chromium and various alloys of chromium. In order to maintain thermal stability for long duration storage of data, the coercivity of the magnetic recording layer must be kept high. High coercivity, in turn, places large demands on the field generated by the write head and results in poor overwriting (OW) and poor field gradients. The field generated by the write head can be the limiting factor for increasing recording density.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,524,730 to Ga-Lane Chen a soft magnetic underlayer for vertical recording is referred as “keeper layer”. The soft underlayer is said to give better writing efficiency by pulling the magnetic flux down from the writing pole of a head of the magnetic recording medium. Examples given of soft magnetic materials are NiFe, CoZrNb, FeAlNx. A particular problem with a NiFe soft underlayer is that the thickness required results in an unacceptable surface roughness. The patent describes a process for thick NiFe deposition that can reduce surface roughness of thin films. The presence of interstitial nitrogen in a soft magnetic layer is claimed to greatly reduce the surface roughness of the soft magnetic layer as compared to another soft magnetic layer without interstitial nitrogen. Interstitial nitrogen is different from nitrogen in the material forming the soft magnetic layer.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,495,252 to Richter, et al., a recording medium with a superparamagnetic underlayer is described and asserted to solve problems arising from the generation of Barkhausen noise in magnetic recording media employing magnetically soft underlayers, e.g., of NiFe (Permalloy). According to the specification, high bit density magnetic recording, storage, and retrieval media of either perpendicular or longitudinal type substantially free of Barkhausen noise are fabricated by substituting a layer or film of a very finely grained (i.e., polycrystalline), magnetically soft material for the continuous, magnetically soft films or layers conventionally utilized as underlayers. The grain size of the ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic material utilized for the magnetically soft underlayer is sufficiently small, such that the grains thereof become superparamagnetic, i.e., they remain magnetically ordered but lose their hysteresis. Although Richter, et al. assert that the described media can be used for longitudinal recording, every example given is for perpendicular recording. No mention is made as to how the media should be changed to function in longitudinal recording.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,280,813 to Carey, et al. a layer structure is described that includes at least two ferromagnetic films antiferromagnetically coupled together across a nonferromagnetic coupling/spacer film. In general, it is said that the exchange coupling oscillates from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic with increasing coupling/spacer film thickness and that the preferred 6 angstrom thickness of the ruthenium coupling/spacer layer was selected because it corresponds to the first antiferromagnetic peak in the oscillation for the particular thin film structure. Materials that are appropriate for use as the nonferromagnetic coupling/spacer films include ruthenium (Ru), chromium (Cr), rhodium (Rh), iridium (Ir), copper (Cu), and their alloys. Because the magnetic moments of the two antiferromagnetically coupled films are oriented antiparallel, the net remanent magnetization-thickness product (Mrt) of the recording layer is the difference in the Mrt values of the two ferromagnetic films. This reduction in Mrt is accomplished without a reduction in the thermal stability of the recording medium because the volumes of the grains in the antiferromagnetically coupled films add constructively. An embodiment of the structure includes two ferromagnetic CoPtCrB films, separated by a Ru spacer film having a thickness selected to maximize the antiferromagnetic exchange coupling between the two CoPtCrB films. The top ferromagnetic layer is designed to have a greater Mrt than the bottom ferromagnetic layer, so that the net moment in zero applied magnetic field is low, but nonzero. The Carey '813 patent also states that the antiferromagnetic coupling is enhanced by a thin (5 Angstroms) ferromagnetic cobalt interface layer added between the coupling/spacer layer and the top and/or bottom ferromagnetic layers.